The Color Purple is a 1982 novel by Alice Walker which received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

________

The book was made into a 1985 film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey, with music by Quincy Jones.

On September 9, 2004, the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, premiered The Color Purple: A New Musical directed by Gary Griffin. With a book by Marsha Norman and music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, the Broadway-bound work presents the story in yet another form. The Broadway premiere was December 1, 2005 at the Broadway Theatre. Oprah Winfrey is one of the producers for the Broadway version.

The Color Purple is an epistolary novel: that is, the book is written in the form of letters. The central character is Celie, a young woman who is sexually abused by her father (who, she later discovers, is her stepfather) and is forced to marry a widower with several children, who is physically abusive towards her.

Then her husband's mistress, singer " Shug" Avery, comes on the scene. Initially, Celie feels threatened by this effervescent, liberated version of feminity - a form that has previously been alien to her.

Like " Mr. —" , Celie's husband (Albert Johnson), Shug has little respect for Celie and the life she lives at first and continues in her lover's footsteps, abusing Celie and adding to her humiliation.

In time, however, the two women bond, and Celie gradually learns what it means to become an empowered woman in her own right, through both sexual and financial emancipation and she finds the strength to leave her tyrannical husband.

This book is often argued to address many issues which are important to understanding African-American life during the early-mid 20th century. Its main theme is the position of the black woman in society, as the lowest of the low, put upon both because of her gender and her color. The book also deals with the idea of how Celie finds true emotional and physical love with Avery.

• ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards: ASCAP Award for Top Box Office Films
• Blue Ribbon Awards: Blue Ribbon Award for Best Foreign Language Film
• Casting Society of America, USA: Artios for Best Casting for Feature Film, Drama
• Directors Guild of America, USA: DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures
• Golden Globes, USA: Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
• Image Awards: Image Award for Outstanding Motion Picture, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture
• Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards: KCFCC Award for Best Director
• National Board of Review, USA: NBR Award for Best Picture - English Language, Best Actress

• Shug: I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.
• Shug: More than anything God love admiration.
  Celie: You saying God is vain?
  Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the colour purple in a field and don't notice it.
  Celie: You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the bible?
  Shug: Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention... except walk?
  [they laugh]
  Shug: Oh, yeah, this field feels like singing!
• Harpo: Who this, Pa? Who this?
  Albert: The woman that shoulda been yo' mammy.
• Celie: The jail you plan for me is the one you're gonna rot in.
• Old Mr.: She black as tar, nappy-headed, got legs like baseball bats, and I hear she got that nasty women's disease.
• Young Celie: Nettie. Write.
  Nettie: What?
  Young Celie: Write.
  Nettie: Nothing but death can keep me from it.
• [to Shug] Celie: He (Albert) beat me when you ain't here. He beat me for not being you.
• Shug: See Daddy, sinners have souls too.
• Sophia: Girl child ain't safe in a family of men.
• Sophia: All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men, but I ain't never thought I'd have to fight in my own house!
• Sophia: I loves Harpo, God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead 'fo I let him beat me.
• Old Mr.: Boy, you goin' let this ol' nappy-headed girl cuss you out like that? You sittin' at the head of your own dinner table and actin' like a waiter.
• [on leaving the farm in Shug's car, shouting to Albert] Celie: I'm poor, black, I might even be ugly, but dear God, I'm here. I'm here.
• Old Mr.: Celie, you has my sympathy. Ain't many women allow they husband's ho to lay up in they house.
• [Sofia begins to laugh after years of silence] Old Mr.: My God, the dead has arisen.
• [after telling Albert that she and her husband are leaving] Shug: Celie is coming with us.
  Albert: What?
  Shug: Celie is coming with us to Memphis.
  Albert: Over my dead body.
  Shug: You satisfied? That what you want?
  [to Celie] Albert: NOW What's wrong with you?
  Celie: You a low down dirty dog, that's what's wrong. Time for me to get away from you, and enter into Creation. And your dead body'd be just the welcome mat I need.
• Shug: You sho is ugly.
• [after telling Celie she knows how she feels] Sofia: Oh... Sofia home, now. Sofia home. Things is gonna be changin' around here. Pass me them peas, boy.
• Sofia: Sat in that jail, I sat in that jail til I felt like I's bout to rot to death. I know what it like to wanna go somewhere and cain't. I know what it like to wanna sing... and have it beat out 'ya. I want to thank you, Miss Celie, fo evrything you done for me. I 'members that day in the store with Miss Millie - I's feelin' real down. I's feelin' mighty low. And when I seed you - I knowd they is a God. I knowd they is a God.
• Squeak: You just a big ol' heifer!
• [Celie confronts Albert] Celie: Nettie and my kids be comin' home soon, and when they get here we gonna' set around and whip your ***.
• [to Albert] Celie: Till you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna' fail.
• Albert: Look at you. You're black, you're poor, you're ugly, you're a woman. You're nothin' at all!
• Celie: The more things change, the more they stay the same

Details

Actors: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey
• Directors: Steven Spielberg
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Widescreen, NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Rated:
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: March 26, 1997
• Run Time: 154 minutes
   

Other Movies You Might Like at Amazon.com

• Beloved DVD ~ Oprah Winfrey
• The Five Heartbeats DVD ~ Troy Beyer
• What's Love Got To Do With It? DVD ~ Rae'Ven Larrymore Kelly
• Malcolm X DVD ~ Angela Bassett

Producers 'Steven Spielberg' and Kathleen Kennedy cast Margaret Avery as Shug Avery after Tina Turner turned it down.
The first film by 'Steven Spielberg' to not feature John Williams's music score.
Jointly holds the record (with The Turning Point) for the film with most Oscar nominations without a single win (11).
Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey Oscar-nominated for their feature film acting debuts in this film.
'Steven Spielberg' had producers Peter Guber and 'Jon Peters' banned from the set. He did this because of their history of offering " suggestions" during production.
The first film released to VHS video entirely in the letterbox format.
" Town" scenes in the movie were filmed in Marshville, North Carolina. A key electrical pole could not be taken down in the middle of the street so a tree was built to hide it.
Shooting for town scenes frequently had to be put on hold due to freight trains passing by the edge of the set.
Nettie's father
Author Alice Walker was uneasy about 'Steven Spielberg' 's appointment to direct the film however, she was confident in a then-unknown Whoopi Goldberg after seeing her San Francisco stand-up routine in which she portrayed many different characters.
Oprah Winfrey was at a " fat farm" to lose weight when she learned she got the part of Sophia. She had to leave immediately, as the role required her to be heavy.
A film adaptation of Alice Walker's novel was so highly anticipated, auditions for the film had to be held under the code " Moon Song" .
Caused one of the most controversial moments in the history of the Academy Awards when it received eleven nominations which did not include 'Steven Spielberg' as Best Director. In the end, it won none of them.
Patti LaBelle auditioned for the role of Shug Avery.